


The Wheel in the Sky

by Ooffo_Rancoofsis



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: Adventure, Best Friends, Friendship, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-19 23:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14883605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ooffo_Rancoofsis/pseuds/Ooffo_Rancoofsis
Summary: Information cannot be created nor destroyed in a closed system. When the universe resets, a nearly identical one takes its place- without the cause of the glitch. However, the old reality does not go away completely, and its echoes can still be heard. Now a year after reality reset following the 'good ending,' these echoes are finally catching up. Starts off with mostly slice of life, them moves to more mystery/action.This story was originally published on Fanfiction, but I decided to post it here. It's still in progress on both websites though. I don't think my work is too dark or graphic, but I gave it a teen rating just in case.





	The Wheel in the Sky

The Wheel in the Sky

Act. 1: A New Reality 

Ch. 1: Prologue 

Her world burned. 

Sayori reached for her swollen neck, grasping, pulling, anything to get it off. Her nails dug into her tender flesh, slick blood and bits of skin embedded in her nails. 

Her eyes were congested. They could not be closed. Her swollen tongue pushed against the roof of her mouth. It tasted metallic, bloody. 

Her legs thrashed as she clawed at her neck, but it wouldn’t end. Her strained eyes bulged and her vision began to fade. She felt tired, sleepy. She would have an eternity to sleep. She tried one more helpless scream, but could only gag. 

She saw a boy. A strange boy about her age. He looked so familiar, as if she had known him all her life, but she could not remember anything about him. Not even his name could be recovered. The boy looked worried. He ran out, running across pure light, towards her. She held out her bloody arms longing for his embrace. As he is about to reach her, she felt a stunning blow to the back of her head. A blinding white light blazes all around them, and she hears the sound of a distant cannon blast. It was the fury of a thousand exploding suns and the freezing void of empty space.

Sayori felt someone grab her body, thrashing it side to side. She heard a distant voice, but could not make it out. From out of the darkness she could see a new light. She opened her mouth and choked in a breath of sweet, sweet air. With the newfound air in her burning lungs, she screamed.

“Sayori!” came a voice.

Her body was wrapped in a long cloth, like a burial shroud. She fought against it, but it twisted around her in knotted ropes. Her body underneath was drenched in sweat. In the darkness, she could feel hands touching her, fighting her. The shroud was cast off and Sayori pushed back. She felt a hard wall against her back.

She looked up and took another deep breath which she exhaled as a scream. She saw a cool window out of which the moon shown gently through the open blinds. In front of her stood a large silhouette. She kicked at it.

“Sayori! It’s me!”

She continued to scream. The silhouette left her. She heard footsteps, and a light was turned on. The light wasn’t very powerful, in fact it was on only its third and dimmest setting, but it still burned her eyes. She closed them and fell back into a fetal position. Her senses told her that there was something soft beneath her. She felt a hand touch her arm, she recoiled.

“Sayori! Calm down, it’s over! You’re safe.” She heard the voice. The voice of Monika, her old friend from high school.

“Sayori,” Monika said soothingly, “It’s over. You’re on your bed in our dorm room. Everything will be alright. Whatever it was, it’s over. You’re awake.”

Sayori did not open her eyes. Instead she began to sob. She cried directly into her sheets. She felt the warm, human, alive hands of Monika on her arms and shoulders. Monika was there for her. Monika held her as she continued to sob. 

After a few minutes, Sayori became silent. Monika continued to hold her.

“Sayori,” Monika asked after a long while, “was it the dream again?”

Sayori didn’t answer at first, but after a few seconds Monika felt Sayori’s head move with a nod. She slowly let go of her, adjusting herself on Sayori’s bed. Sayori sat up, her back against the wall. Her face was red and stained with tears. Her beautiful blue eyes were bloodshot. 

Sayori looked around the familiar room. On one end was a large window out of which she could see the night sky and the distant rooftops of surrounding buildings. Below the window was her desk, covered with papers. On the side sat Mr. Cow and other stuffed animals that she kept from childhood. On the side directly opposite of her bed was her roommate Monika’s. The sheets were messed up. Sayori must have awakened Monika with her screams. She looked at Monika sitting on the bed with her. Monika wore a simple nightgown, and strands of her long hair draped over her face, partially obscuring her green eyes which seemed to glow in the darkness. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Monika asked after a while. Sayori did not. Just the thought made her feel like vomiting. Sayori decided to tell anyway.

“It was the same as before,” she began, “it was burning and choking and I was dying, dying…” 

Instantly Monika reached over and hugged her. “It’s over now. It was just a dream.”

“It felt so real,” she muttered, “and this is the ninth time.” Sayori pulled away. She turned around and stared out the window. In the distance, she could hear the quiet whispers of car horns and sirens. Life was going on, and she was one small part of it sitting here in her dorm.

“How far did it go?” asked Monika.

“Just as far as before, maybe even further this time.” She paused to collect her thoughts. “I was dying and then I saw him, the boy from before. Then everything became unbearably bright.”

They sat there for a few more moments. Monika did not disturb the silence. At last Sayori spoke. “Again, I felt as if I had known him my entire life, but I do not know who he is. His face looked so familiar, but I have never seen him before.” She paused again, and curled her legs up to her chest. “What does it mean?”

Monika was silent for a little while longer. “Sayori, I think it was all just a bad dream.”

Sayori shook her head. “This was far too real and specific to be a dream.”

“You’re probably just stressed, or maybe your depression is doing that to you. Are you okay, Sayori?”

“Of course I’m not okay. I’ve never been okay, especially since I’ve started having these… nightmares. If I can even call them that. But I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“You’re not okay, but you’re fine? Sayori, I’m here for you. Yuri and Natsuki are also here if you want to talk to them. It’s not that we constantly worry about you, it’s just that we care about you.”

Sayori didn’t turn around. “I still don’t think it was just a dream,” she said eager to change the subject.

“What else could it have been?”

“I don’t think my subconcious mind is creative enough, even in my worst days, to come up with something like that. Plus, how would it have even happened? I have never been hanged before or even choked. How could I just invent something so powerful if I had never experienced it? And why would something so specific keep coming back? It seemed so real as if that actually happened to me.” She reached up and felt her unbruised neck.

“Sayori. That never happened to you.”

She turned back to face Monika. “You don’t know that. What if my memory of the event were somehow erased? What if a version of me from another universe died like that? What if this is a vision of the future? What if I’m the reincarnation of someone completely different who died like that?”

“Even if your memory could be erased, the violence would leave physical scars. And I don’t believe in any type of reincarnation, but even if it were real, how would the memories of a previous life even be transferred?”

“I don’t know, and you do not know enough about the nature of this universe either. We do not know anything about reality in and of itself, so we cannot rule anything out.” She shook her head. “All I know is that I have these experiences which are completely different from any normal dream or hallucination, and I cannot explain them. I’m not saying that there is some crazy explanation out there; I’m just saying that I’m too old to believe that I know anything for certain.” 

Sayori rose from the bed and walked over to her small closet. She took out a pair of sweatpants and a light jacket. She wore a nightshirt and pajama pants, and she simply slipped her warmer clothes over her nightclothes. 

“Where are you going?” asked Monika.

“I don’t know yet. To take a walk, I guess. Maybe find a place to clear my head.”

“Sayori it’s,” she checked the alarm clock, “Not even five in the morning. And we have almost five hours before our first classes.”

“I cannot sleep,” she said; then she slipped on her boots, gently opened the door, and stepped outside. 

Monika was tempted to just go back to sleep, but she could not abandon her friend. She looked around and saw that Sayori had left her phone on her nightstand as well. Monika did not know where she would be heading and it was usually not a good idea to wander around at night without a group or at least a phone, so Monika got up and hurriedly dressed herself in warmer clothes before rushing out. At this hour, the dormitory’s fluorescent lights cast sleepy light throughout the empty hallway. Monika heard a door open as if someone was taking the stairs. Monika ran to catch up with Sayori, and they met up in the lobby area of the building.

“What are you doing?” asked Sayori.

“Just thought I’d join you,” Monika said smiling back. “Is that okay?”

“If you want to come,” she said with a shrug. They walked together out of the building. The early morning sky was still dark although they knew that the sun would be rising soon. Monika looked around the campus scenery. Streetlights shone on the large dorm and class buildings that surrounded them on either side while grassy quads and small gardens separated the buildings giving the whole area a strange nocturnal aura of both urban and pastoral elements. Sayori didn’t look at the scenery but continued walking, head down, eyes examining the sidewalk cracks. Monika followed. 

The cool nighttime air was mixed with the smell of the distant ocean, the result of their campus being on an island. This island was the largest in a series of keys far off the coast of California known as the Puerto Pulsos archipelago. These islands were similar to the Hawaiian islands and they often served as a halfway point between Hawaii or distant Asia and the North American continent. Sayori kept walking until she reached a quad on the opposite side of campus. This grassy area was large and had a series of palm trees trimming the edges. Sayori walked up to the base of one and sat down, back to the bark. Monika sat at the base of the palm tree directly in front of Sayori, facing her. They sat like that for a few moments. 

Sayori took a few deep breaths, then seemed to finally relax. She rested her head against the bark of the tree as she looked up into the night sky. There were still stars out, but she could see the eerie pale glow in the distance that signaled the morning’s coming.

“Look, Sayori,” said Monika after a while, “whatever this is, you will get through it, just like you did back in high school.”

Sayori shook her head, “I never ‘got through it’ and you know it.”

“You’re right. But you can’t deny that for a while things were better. I mean, it was almost a year ago exactly that we began to know each other, remember? Back when we met Yuri and Natsuki?”

“No, they only liked me for who they thought I was,” Sayori said. She turned her head to face the ground and started absentmindedly playing with a pinch of the sandy palm soil. 

“You know that’s not true,” said Monika, “Remember how great that was? We were finally able to start a literature club, and I mean, yeah, it had only four people, but it was nice hanging out together after school. And I know you enjoyed it. I remember the look on your face when you found out that all of us planned to go to the same college. Remember? You said that we could continue the group and not just forget about each other. You said that you had finally found friends.”

Sayori remained silent, but she looked up at Monika and gave an almost invisible smile. She then tilted her head back against the tree and closed her eyes as if resting. She seemed, at least for a moment, to be at peace.

“What are you doing?” asked Monika.

Sayori shrugged with her eyes closed. “I’m just going to meditate or something. You can as well, it often helps.”

Monika knew that her friend would often use the soothing natural environment and meditation to clear her mind, although Monika herself wasn’t too on board with it. Monika prefered things like music or writing to clear her mind, but Monika was glad that Sayori had found a safe outlet to let her feeling seep out. Sayori’s depression would come and go. At worst, it would leave her completely without the will to even eat and too scared to talk to even her friends. Back in high school, Sayori used to cover it up with a facade of happiness, but by the time they were about to graduate, the facade had crumbled. Sayori sank deeper and deeper into despair, and Monika was often afraid that her friend would take her own life. However, they had worked through it. Sayori had discovered meditative practices and Monika had introduced her to poetry. These things helped give Sayori meaning in life while her friends made it worth living. They had gotten through it, or so Monika had thought. 

She looked over at Sayori who sat cross legged while breathing steadily. Her lips were moving slightly as if in wordless speech. Monika began to imitate Sayori. She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind as well.


End file.
